


War Without Weapons

by mautadite



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Episode Related, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 08:47:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3481901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mautadite/pseuds/mautadite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Idelle stands guard for her; Anne, she has stashed in her own rooms.</p><p>Coda to 2x06.</p>
            </blockquote>





	War Without Weapons

**Author's Note:**

> A coda to 2x06. Will probably be jossed to hell by next episode, but I had a lot of feelings and I wanted to get them out.
> 
> Warning for some descriptions of blood and gore. Title from Sia’s _Elastic Heart_.

Idelle stands guard for her; it only takes a little coaxing for her to see that no good will come of more people than necessary being involved in this affair. Max trusts Idelle; she’s strong, more sensible than most, never loses her head.

Then, the bodies. After Silver is gone, Max strips off her outer layers and sets upon the blood with bucket and sponge, cleaning up the worst of it. It will stain, that much is inevitable when it has been made to rest on the wood floors for so long, but with enough scrubbing, she can get it down to a faint blur. As for the rest, no one will question another cheap throw rug in a whorehouse. 

When the floor’s done as best as can be, Max turns to Logan and Charlotte. She has to close her eyes again almost immediately. Charlotte… she had been worried about this entire venture, a little guilt-ridden too because she was sweet in that way. She’d wanted to turn back. And Max had given her a kiss and a few placating words and sent her straight into the arms of destruction.

Swallowing, she forces herself to open her eyes, look at her friend. She expects to feel anger, a sliver of resentment, _anything_ towards Anne, but it doesn’t come. If anything, she’s more resolved than ever to shield her from what may happen. No more women should have to hurt because of this.

After cleaning up the remainder of the blood staining their bodies and the space beneath them, she takes a moment for a quick conference with Idelle at the door. Burning the clothes would be best, but it cannot be done now. Nor can they move the bodies; that must take place in the early dawn, when the brothel is quiet and the light is low and most patrons and workers are abed. Morning is hours and hours away. What will happen then, Max is not sure. For now, only she, Idelle, and Anne are in the business, and how they will get the bodies out of the building and to a place of safety without being seen is beyond her.

“Shit,” Idelle observes, biting one fingernail pensively.

“Merde,” Max agrees, pressing her palm to her forehead. 

After another moment, she tugs Idelle inside. It takes another few minutes of discussion before they find a temporary, but suitable bandage for the open wound in which they stand. They locate the coolest corner of the room, and between the two of them, manage to wrap the bodies in sheets and stash them there. It should be another few hours before they begin to smell. They should have some time.

Max touches Idelle’s hand gratefully as they lean against the wall, panting from their exertions. The thin smile she receives in return tells her what she already knows: Idelle is frightened, displeased by the protection she offers Anne, but she will stand by her. Max grasps her hand properly and kisses three of her knuckles, feather light and quick. There is such loyalty to be found among whores that men could never dream of.

“Find me…” Her mind races, filing through names and contacts. “Find me Ben Hislop.” Peaceable, strong, not the brightest, and just susceptible enough to blackmail to make him useful. Idelle nods at once; she knows the man. “Tell him nothing yet, but make sure he can be reached when we need him.”

“Can do.” Idelle seems to have trouble looking directly at the lump of Charlotte’s body; she waves her hand to gesture. “What are we going to tell everyone?”

“Harbour Island.” Max has been repeating the story to herself, and already it sounds true. “They were very much in love, and he had family there. It should hold.” 

Idelle laughs softly, in remembrance.

“Charlotte would have been the type, wouldn’t she?” She hesitates only once more before she slips out the door. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

That is a question Max has stopped asking herself. Fear might catch her betimes, as it has in the past few hours, and makes her hands shake and her stomach tense, but in this her mind is as clear as ever.

Anne, she has stashed in her own rooms. After gathering up her belongings and locking Charlotte’s door, she makes her way quietly down the hall. Revelry and merriment rise relentlessly from the common rooms below, but Max ignores it. One of the windows on her path gives her a clear view down to the beach, and Flint’s men. Max spends a moment contemplating the tents and tiny dots of human life before pressing on.

Anne Bonny is seated in her tub, water up to her chest, arms wrapped around her knees. Just where she left her. She looks up at Max with hooded eyes as she slips in, closes the door behind her with a quiet click.

It’s a while before either of them speaks. Max putters about, getting rid of the soiled water from the bucket, washing out her hands and face and things in another one.

As she does, Anne watches her. Max can see, with what insight that periphery provides, that she has lost that hunted, steely look that covered her eyes like glass. She had almost bolted when Max ushered her into the water (“Fuck you wanna bathe me for; I can get clean myself.”) but eventually, she had consented. She hasn’t been doing much bathing however; that much is clear. There are still splatters of blood dotting her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, like freckles. She does have freckles, true ones that race down her cheekbones to her shoulders and arms, but they are very light, only just visible in the sun, and Max feels like she never sees Anne in light.

There’s a low-standing stool near the vanity; Max carries it over to the tub. Anne averts her eyes at once. Her youth is most evident at times like these, when she’s wracked with uncertainty and doubt. At all other times, Max finds it difficult to believe that she is this woman’s senior by two years.

Max fetches herself a cloth and, gentle as can be, cups Anne’s jaw to turn her face towards her. She dabs at the spots of blood, cleaning them away.

“The bodies,” she begins, firmly but gently. Anne winces, a barely perceptible twitch in her cheek, but then she nods. 

“I know a good place.” Her voice, as ever, is as sand on stone. “We can wait until it’s quietest ‘round here, and I can take ‘em.”

“I’m arranging some help, should you need it.”

Anne’s look turns hard and wary, and Max must rush to reassure her.

“Only a pair of strong arms. It has not been done yet, ma puce. We will tell no one else if you think it best so.”

The reassurance does what it can to calm her back down. Part of Max is relieved that Anne finds it objectionable; despite everything else, at least she is present and lucid enough to realise that it would be a great risk, blackmail or no.

“We’ll see,” she says shortly.

They lapse back into silence. Anne’s skin is warm where she touches it even though the bathwater has long gone cool; it is as if all the anger that made her blood hot is still skulking just beneath the surface. Max dabs at her face until it is all clean angles and shadows, watches her expression shift from dull hardness to uncertainty. When she gauges the moment to be right, she slips her hand to Anne’s shoulder, just to the top of where the scars start.

“How do you feel?” Max asks. She strokes her skin lightly.

“What do you fucking think?” 

There’s no anger in the words, not really. Max has learnt to read Anne, her moods and her actions and all the different variables that get twisted up inside of her. A quick study, she had thought at first, upon hearing all the stories of the dread woman pirate, upon slipping into Jack’s lap that day in the salon and seeing Anne half rise from her seat in annoyance. She’d been sure she had Anne Bonny all figured out, but she had been wrong, and that had prompted her to learn.

And so she sees past the bite of her words.

“I do not want to assume.” She keeps her touches faint, unobtrusive. “I want you to talk to me.”

“Don’t want to talk.” Indeed, she seems like to bury her face in the valley of her knees. “That’s _his_ area, talking.”

Max observes her carefully: her eyes how they slip sidelong, her teeth how they catch at her bottom lip. It is safe, she thinks, to dip her hand beneath the waterline, and find one of Anne’s own hands to grasp. She does so with minimal reaction.

“Jack is… practical; this much I have gathered. You must know that he did not want to hurt you.”

Anne snorts. Max would take it as her answer, but she can see that there is more coming. Anne’s eyes are still downcast, but she flicks a little look at Max. Her fingers twitch.

“What about you? Issis what you wanted?” She jerks her chin in the direction of the road, the beach, the sea, and all that lies beyond. “Him out there, away from it all, me in here with you?”

The question is not a wholly unexpected one, and yet it makes needles press at Max’s breast nonetheless, something like sorrow, something like regret. She cannot fault Anne for thinking it. Anyone would. A smile catches sadly at the corner of her lips, and she leans across to kiss Anne, at the corner of hers. Anne doesn’t try to push her away, because Anne will never have it in her to push Max away; this she has seen.

“Jamais, ma chérie.” What words are there, that could explain? “I… I wanted to build something. I wanted to feel safe, always. I wanted to be strong, not in the way you are, but in a way I could manage. I was tired of being weak.”

“You ain’t _weak_ ,” Anne says with a surly cast, like she’s offended at the word. Max’s smile widens.

“Not anymore.” Some impulse makes her lace their fingers together as she talks; it feels right. “I wanted to know that I could grow unimpeded. I wanted _you_ , and knowing that you wanted me too only made it easier to take. I wanted to be happy, as happy as a whore can ever be on Nassau. But this… Jack, Logan, Charlotte… no, I did not want this. Never. I did not want to see you hurt.”

Anne’s eyes go low. It is not hard to see the self-reproach and loathing seeping back into them. Before she can stop herself, Max grabs both of Anne’s hands, and falls kneeling at the side of the tub. She thinks with some wonder that it always comes to this, and always will: Max on her knees in front of a woman she would have never thought to care for so much, trying to reason, trying to implore, ready to give everything up.

But this time, the woman beside her is of a height, curled up defensively in the tub, shielding herself with arms and teeth from everything outside. They can see eye to eye.

“But now that it _has_ happened… I meant what I said, Anne. No one will touch you. I will protect you.”

“Why?” Anne asks, abrasive as ever, but there is a note of plaintiveness there as well. Max cups her cheek.

“You once did the same for me.”

If Anne has a reply to that, Max never hears it. The kiss that Max stretches across to plant on her forehead brings a cool, sweet silence, and all the words seem to go out of Anne in one breath. Max thinks she sees a little nod of acknowledgement, alongside the blush staining the pale cheeks. With her head bowed like that, her hair all in her face, Max thinks again that for once, she looks her true age.

“Come,” Max says, standing. “We must get you out of here before you come over all wrinkly like yesterday’s sheets.”

Anne consents to stand, and lets Max dry her off for a few moments before she grabs the towel brusquely and finishes off. This is one of the few times that Max has seen the front of her body in full light; some of the scars curve forward and lick at her ribs and breasts. Max’s breathing goes quiet. It is a ghastly plain of history. If a woman who survived a thing like this can call a woman like Max brave… 

She will not let it be in vain. 

Tugging Anne’s hand, she leads her across to the bed, and wraps her up in one of her shawls. There are no protests when Max coaxes her between the sheets, and then stretches down next to her. She holds her hand. They will have quiet, for a little while yet, and Max can go over her plans, try to find the chinks and the weak spots before the time comes to act. Together, they can wait for morning to come.


End file.
